Richard Bandler - Trance–formations. Neuro–Linguistic Programming™ and the Structure of Hypnosis

{John Grinder approaches David and looks at his name tag.)

David? My name is—(He reaches out to shake hands with David. As David's hand comes up, John reaches out with his left hand, holds David's wrist lightly, lifts it up near his face, and points to David's right palm with his right forefinger.) Look at your hand. Would you consider carefully all the color changes and shadows that occur in your hand. Study the lines and creases with interest as you allow your arm to begin to drift down slowly. And I might offer you the same suggestion that I offered Al, and that is … as your arm begins to drift down … with honest unconscious movements … your eyes will begin to feel heavy … and will close… . You will see clearly …just prior to your hand … finishing its downward movement … something of interest to you … that you haven't seen … for years… . Take your time… . Enjoy it. … As soon as your hand comes to rest …on mine … at that particular moment … you will have … a sense of completion … and amusement … having remembered to forget … what that memory was… . And as you know … from having been here before … (David's hand touches John's right hand and John completes the handshake. John's voice tone, which has shifted during the induction, returns to "normal" and he continues.) John Grinder, and I have enjoyed meeting you very much. I don't know how you got the information to come to the seminar, but I am glad that you did.

These are called leverage inductions. There are many phenomena that are believed by the general population to be indicators of altered states of consciousness. Catalepsy is one such phenomenon. Hand and arm catalepsy is usually an indication that something unusual is going on. People don't typically sit around with their hand and arm suspended in the air. If you can create that experience, it gives you credibility as a hypnotist, and you can use that experience as leverage to achieve other altered states.

I asked Al "May I borrow your arm for a moment?" How do you make sense out of a question like that? He accepted that as a meaningful utterance, and allowed me to lift his arm. I gave it a little jiggle, and when I released it, his arm was cataleptic. Now the leverage part is done. By my communication I've put Al in an unusual situation: his hand and arm are hanging there, cataleptic in space. In order to utilize that in the context of a hypnotic induction, I then attach the kind of response I would like him to develop—moving in the direction of a hypnotic trance—as a way for him to escape from the leverage position. I ask him to allow his hand and arm to go down with honest unconscious movements, only as rapidly as his eyes close and he remembers an experience. I also suggest that when his hand comes to rest on his thigh, he will come back to a normal state of consciousness, amused by the entire process.

Cathy: How do you know if his arm is cataleptic?

I can feel it. As I hold it up and jiggle it slightly, it will become lighter and then stay up by itself. Kitty, close your eyes for a second. Cathy, reach over and lift her left arm. Pick it up and notice how it feels. Kitty, now I would like you to form an image of a place where you took a vacation once that was particularly pleasant. Nod your head when you have it. Now, 1 want you to examine in detail all of the objects in your visual environment. And I would like you to begin to describe out loud all the details of form and color that you can see there in your vacation spot.

Kitty: I'm in this sequoia forest. What specifically do you see there? Kitty: Many trees and deep shadows.

OK. Cathy, put your finger under her wrist. Ask her for more and more detail, and each time that she begins to talk, move your finger up and down a little to find out whether she is holding it or not. When she begins to hold it, you will know that you have got an unconscious response in her arm. Whenever she is fully involved in seeing and describing those images, she will be unaware of her arm. Doing that will teach you to feel the difference between somebody consciously holding his arm and someone unconsciously holding it. By the way, if the person is consciously holding his arm, go ahead and utilize it as if he weren't doing it consciously.

A variation on this is what we call the dreaming arm. It's a kind of leverage induction. It's a really nice technique that everyone should know, especially if you work with children. Kids love the dreaming arm.

The first thing I do with a kid is get his interest. I ask "Do you know about your dreaming arm? 11He might think I'm being a little strange, so I'll start laughing at him and say "You don't know about the dreaming arm? I know about it. I might tell you, but you'd probably tell everybody else." That really gets kids going. Soon the kid is saying "I won't tell anybody. I promise. Please tell me!" So I'll respond "Oh, you probably don't really want to know." This is what Milton Erickson called "building response potential."

From that point on it's really easy. You ask "What's your favorite TV program or movie?" Nowadays it's always the "Bionic Man" or "Star Wars." Then you say "Can you remember the very first scene when Steve Austin is running along and the music is playing? 11As he remembers the movie or TV show, you watch his eyes to see which way he accesses. (See Appendix I) If he looks up to his right, you lift up his right arm. If he looks up to his left, you lift his left arm. The arm will easily become cataleptic, because that arm is controlled by the same brain hemisphere that he is using to process information in response to your question.

If a person looks up to his left, he is accessing remembered images which are stored in the right hemisphere of the brain. When you lift the left hand, which is also operated by the right hemisphere, he won't notice what you are doing with his arm— if you do it gently so that you

don't interrupt his images. His left arm will be automatically cataleptic, because his consciousness is entirely occupied by the images. The person typically won't have a representation of your raising his arm because all his attention is on the images.

You can also ask about music, especially if you know the person is very auditory. "When was the last time you heard a really interesting musical group?" You just lift the arm on the same side that he looks toward as he accesses.

Once you've got arm catalepsy, you just say "All right. Now close your eyes and watch the whole show in detail, with sound, remembering the most important thing is your favorite part, so you can tell me about it later. And your arm will go down only as fast as you see the whole show."

That has worked on every kid I have ever been around, except one who was the child of a hypnotist and had been programmed for years to be unhypnotizable. This child had worked with about twenty–five great hypnotists and had managed to defeat them all, Rather than bothering to attempt to play that game with her, I just congratulated her. I told her she was unhypnotizable and couldn't possibly go into a trance. Of course, then she had to try to defeat that statement, and she started to go into a trance!

After you've raised the arm and it is cataleptic, you can do the same thing you do with any leverage induction. You can say "I'm not going to ask you to put your arm down any faster than your unconscious mind can present you with a replay of that entire movie so that you can enjoy it now … watching and listening to each scene, one by one … in great detail … and it can be so pleasant to see parts that you'd forgotten you remember … now… ."

Woman: Which arm is the right one to use if they just defocus and look straight ahead?

The easiest response would be to lift both arms. There are only two. The one that falls wasn't the one.